On Burnout: A Personal Recollection

I didn’t realize I was burnt out.

I was “fine”.

I just knew every email irritated me, even my clients started getting under my skin, and eventually I began questioning my own designs and skills. Everything started feeling like a chore, like trudging through three feet of water while forcing a polite smile, my mind spiraling into thoughts of all the other things I "should" be doing instead.

Tattooing used to genuinely make me smile, not cringe. I loved everything about it…the clients, their stories, the creative challenge, my setup ritual—and then one day, without warning, it became too much. My calendar filled up, I opened my studio, and then the studio got busier. My to do list turned into a never ending notes app nightmare, yet I still felt like I wasn’t doing enough. I should be drawing more, posting more, smiling more, and somehow still have energy to enjoy my time “off.”

You know that uncomfortable realization that you’re the one who built the machine that’s eating you? Yeah. That one. And look, I get it. This is a self created problem, a privileged problem. But the thing about burnout, at least in my experience, is that it sneaks up on you. From the outside, I was doing "well" aka booked out, grateful, creating art, etc. but beneath the surface, I felt like I was cosplaying my own life. To fix this, I tried producing more: better flash, new projects, anything to reignite the spark. But it wasn't the projects; it was me.

I hadn't left space in my life for curiosity or rest. I'd even lost my sense of humor about it all, caught in that exhausting loop of hustling harder to prove I deserved what I already had.

So here I am, not fixed and certainly not enlightened. Just tired, trying to do something differently, like taking actual days off (the bar is truly on the floor, y’all). And I recognize that writing about burnout isn’t profound or noble and honestly, it's uncomfortable and a little embarrassing. It's just my body telling me I've been running on fumes for too long at least according to my therapist.

I'm not sharing this because I've figured it out (spoiler alert: definitely haven’t). I’m still picking at the edges of my own mess, but I am trying to be gentler with myself, trying to stop measuring my worth by how much I produce, and remembering that I became an artist because I loved creating, not because I wanted to run a productivity machine.

If anything, I hope by admitting where I’m at, someone else feels a little freer to pausse and writing this has made me realize burnout doesn’t mean I don’t love tattooing. It just means I need a minute. And even though my feelings about it fluctuate depending on the severity of my latest crisis, overall, I think that’s okay.